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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"A man often meets his destiny on the very road he took to avoid it."''|French/Chinese/[[Kung Fu Panda
Whenever anyone tries to avert a prophecy, for good or ill, the end result of their actions is to bring the prophecy about. The harder he struggles to prevent it, the more inescapable his destiny becomes. Fate, it seems, loves irony. Strangely, the other side of this, where the prophecy is fulfilled because someone ''wants'' to fulfill it, is rarely explored in fiction.
When a [[The Hero|hero]] tries to prevent the prophesied release of an [[Sealed Evil in
One common mechanism for this is a [[Prophecy Twist]]. If no one understands the real meaning of the prophecy, any attempts to avert it will naturally be futile. A cynic will point out that by this measure, a prophecy ''must'' be vague. Otherwise it would be easy to defeat, or else those it affects must carry an [[Idiot Ball]] and not take the direct approach that would have no room for failure.
The archetypal [[Older Than Feudalism]] example is the Greek tragedy ''[[Oedipus the King
Most of the real-world prophecies that come true are also self-fulfilling -- simply stating that something will happen often ensures that it will happen ''someday'', whether by accident or because someone read your prophecy and decided he'd make it happen.
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== Anime & Manga ==
* ''[[Slayers Try]]'' has a town that fears dragons because one of them destroyed the town. They manage (along with Xelloss) to make Filia angry enough that she does just that.
* In ''[[
** The real kicker is that, apparently, ''[[Gambit Pileup|she and Clow planned all this]]''. [[Mind Screw|Even the characters are starting to get confused]].
** {{spoiler|Worse yet, apparently they just set him off again because now he's just going to try again. A [[Stable Time Loop]] or something, it's really not very clear... Even the metaphorical [[Mind Screw|screw]] is getting confused, really.}}
* Very nearly occurred with Hiei of ''[[
* In ''[[Dragon Ball
** In addition, his ''actual'' death is by the son of one of the three Saiyans he allowed to live in one timeline, and by Goku in the other.
* In ''[[X
* ''[[
* ''[[
** Devimon did something similar by hearing the youngest of the kids will be the one to cause his death. He goes after TK, triggering Patamon's evolution.
* In ''[[
* In ''[[Jo Jo's Bizarre Adventure
* In ''[[
* In ''[[
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* In one issue of ''[[The Beano]]'', [[Meaningful Name|Fatty]] reads about a bean shortage in the paper. He promptly buys all the beans he can find and causes the shortage.
* According to a [[Retcon]] in ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]'', Boliver Trask was inspired to create the Sentinels because his son was having visions of a [[Bad Future]], and he assumed this meant a mutant-controlled one. The visions were actually of the "Days of Future Past", a Sentinel-controlled future.
* In the classic [[Judge Dredd (
== Fairy Tales ==
* In [http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/jacobs/english/fishring.html The Fish and the Ring], [http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/russian/russianwondertales/vasiliiunlucky.html Vasilii the Unlucky], [http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/grimms/29devilgoldhairs.html The Devil With the Three Golden Hairs], [http://www.mythfolklore.net/andrewlang/260.htm The King Who Would Be Stronger Than Fate], and many other fairy tales, a man who discovers finds his child [[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy|doomed]] to marry a poor child tries to kill them with many tasks, before and after the wedding. It never works.
* In "[[Sun, Moon, and Talia
* In Madame d'Aulnoy's ''[http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/aulnoy/rosette.html Princess Rosette]'', the fairies (reluctantly) predict that the princess will cause grave danger, or even death, to her older brothers. So her parents lock her in a tower. When they die, her brothers immediately free her. She learns that people eat peacocks and, in her innocence, resolves to marry the King of the Peacocks. Her loving brothers try to bring this about and end up in grave danger (though they do survive).
* In [[The Brothers Grimm (Creator)|The Brothers Grimm]]'s [http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/grimms/115brightsunbrings.html The Bright Sun Brings It to Light], a tailor's apprentice in need of money robs and murders a poor Jew who prophesies with his last breath that the apprentice won't get away with it because "the bright sun will bring [the crime] to light." Years pass and the apprentice eventually finds work, marries his boss' daughter and starts a family. One day, he notices the sun shining on his coffee and the reflection making circles on the walls and mutters "yes, it would like very much to bring it to light, and cannot!" His wife asks him what he means by this and pesters him until he admits his crime to her. She confides the secret to someone else and it soon becomes public knowledge. "And thus, after all, the bright sun did bring it to light."
== Film ==
* In the sequel to ''[[
* In ''[[Star Trek (
* In the 2006 [[Bollywood]] [[Superhero]] movie ''Krrish'', a modern take on the ancient story of Krishna in the ''[[Mahabharata]]'', the antagonist Dr. Arya builds a supercomputer that can predict the future. After seeing his own predicted death at the hands of Krrish, he begins hunting him down. Krrish's friend Kristian is shot dead by Dr. Arya when he is mistaken for Krrish. As a result, Krrish vows to revenge against Dr. Arya and eventually kills him. Dr. Arya's attempt to prevent his death led to it becoming true.
* ''[[
** Arguably, Tai Lung's descent into darkness is itself something of a self-fulfilling prophecy: if Oogway had not foreseen such darkness in him and denied him the Dragon Scroll, he would not have gone mad with desire for power and sought to steal it. And the snow leopard would never have believed himself destined for it in the first place if a) his [["Well Done, Son" Guy|father-figure]] Shifu hadn't filled his head with dreams about it and b) he hadn't been given a [[Meaningful Name|name which rings the knell of destiny]].
*** Yet, {{spoiler|he actually GETS the scroll during the last fight, and Po goes as far as explaining to him the meaning of the scroll. Considering his violent and not so smart reaction after that}} Oogway may have had a point.
**** Point. Though it should be mentioned this was only after having already rampaged, been locked up for twenty years, and then being battered by Po. After going through all that (and becoming that unstable) it's not surprising Tai Lung would react badly. There's no telling what would have happened if he had been given the scroll 20 years ago--his reaction could have been the same, or despair, annoyance, sulking, who knows. Not to mention if he hadn't been encouraged to believe he was the Dragon Warrior or that gaining the scroll would make Shifu proud of him...
***** Granted, but Oogway was likely genre savvy enough to know his role in the course of events, effectively subverting this trope WHILE playing it straight. If he had never denied Tai Lung the role of Dragon Warrior, he would not have rampaged or been imprisoned, which means the Furious Five would not have come to be, Po would not have been enamored with them, and he would never have set out on the path that led HIM to discover his destiny as the TRUE Dragon Warrior. And if Shifu had not been heartbroken at Tai Lung's [[Start of Darkness]], he would not have trained the Five or Po, which means SEVEN of that world's heroes would instead be beholden to lives of misery. Oogway set in motion events which brought peace back to the Valley, and to each of his students. This troper might have just blown his own mind.
** The [[Kung Fu Panda 2
* The entire plot of ''[[
* In ''[[
** Case in point, Trinity said that the Oracle had told her she, Trinity, would fall in love with the guy who was the One from the prophecies. When Trinity fell in love with Neo, she used this to justify her belief that Neo was the One. But maybe she only fell in love with him because she thought he was the One? She was so fixated on the idea of the prophecy that she was unable to fall in love with anyone else, but once Morpheus announced Neo as [[The Chosen One]], Trinity wanted desperately to believe in it.
*** Shooting script actually included additional lines about Morpheus finding other "Ones" before, who all died (hence why Cypher tells Neo not to screw with Agents like others did and just run) and Trinity whispering to Neo that she knows he IS The One, because she had a feeling about him she did not have about others.
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** However, it's subverted when Neo, [[The Messiah]] "prophesied" by the Machines to perpetuate a cycle of death and rebirth of Zion that had repeated several times before, he rebelled against the prophecy and later broke the cycle with the [[Unwitting Pawn]] help of [[Big Bad|Smith]].
* The bank insolvency example was mentioned in ''[[Sneakers]]''.
* In the first ''[[Terminator (
** Similarly, in the third film he likely wouldn't have been in position to survive a nuclear war and assume command of the widespread human survivors (or get together with his future wife and second-in-command) if the T-X had simply gotten on with covertly helping the rise of Skynet and left him alone.
*** He would have done that anyway, eventually. T-X just sped it up.
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*** And later the Terminator tells younger Connor that he was able to kill him in the future because they had become friends in the past. He becomes friends with the same robot that kills him because he became friends with it.
* In ''[[Willow]],'' the local evil sorceress inadvertently causes her own downfall by trying to kill the infant prophesied to... well, be her downfall.
* Subverted in ''[[
* ''[[
{{quote| 'destiny ain't what you thought it were'.}}
* In ''[[Wanted (
** In ''Weapons of Fate,'' Wesley shows some [[Genre Savvy]] and ridicules the Immortal for the Fraternity's reliance on the concept of fate; his mother {{spoiler|died by his father's hand, ''at her own insistence,'' because the loom of fate marked her, and he went along with it.}} Wesley finds this absurd and doesn't think the problem is self-fulfilling prophecy so much as members of the Fraternity having serious problems with common sense and a lack thereof.
* ''[[
** ...and ''La jetéee'', the short French New Wave film it was based on.
* ''[[Paycheck]]''. And not ''[[Paycheck]]''. Depending on the scene more than depending on logic.
* The [[Sandra Bullock]] film ''[[Premonition]]'', mixed with [[Anachronic Order]] via [[Unstuck in Time]].
** This is a particularly frightening example, because of the [[Anachronic Order]] nature of the film, she spends every other day as one ''before'' and one ''after'' her husband dies, and spends the movie trying to prevent his death not knowing {{spoiler|that her eventual presence at the scene of his accident is what causes it.}}
* A prophecy said that the title character in ''[[
* In ''[[
* In ''[[Riddick|The Chronicles of Riddick]]'', the [[Big Bad]] experiences [[Genocide Backfire]] when he kills off the entire Furyan Race to avoid death by one of their hands. Except he misses one, who later comes back and bites him in the arse. Hard. His name is Riddick. {{spoiler|He actually missed two, and the other one saves Riddick's life.}}
* in ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]: On Stranger Tides'' Black Beard journeyed to the Fountain of Youth to "cheat death". Guess where he died.
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** Retold by W. Somerset Maugham in "The Appointment in Samarra".
** And by Italian singer Roberto Vecchioni in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM06J-dthGo "Samarcanda"]
** Also used as a [[Title Drop]] in the TV adaptation of [[
** That story is played with in ''[[
** The Jewish version of this story has King Solomon meeting the angel of death, who looks sad. Upon being asked why he is sad, the angel replies that he is supposed to take the lives of two of Solomon's advisers but can't. Solomon, worried for his advisers, sends them off to the city of Luz, famous for the fact that all who live within have immortality so long as they remain in that city. The following day Solomon sees the angel of death again, who is happy this time. Why was he sad yesterday, and why is he now happy? Because he was supposed to take the lives of those advisers just before the entrance to the city of Luz, and couldn't do so so long as they weren't there yet...
* There was a small town. One day, an old lady said something bad was going to happen that day. Word gets out, and then every person is so paranoid that the townspeople burn it down and run.
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== Literature ==
* In the [[Hindu Mythology]] epic ''[[
* In [[Piers Anthony]]'s ''[[Apprentice Adept|Blue Adept]]'', in [[Your Princess Is in Another Castle|(what they thought was)]] their big showdown, protagonist Stile asks the Red Adept why she was gunning for him. She replies a prophecy had foretold of her destruction at his hands, so she decided to strike first. Stile points out that he never would've heard of her, magic, or the world of Phaze (let alone been able to enter it) if Red hadn't murdered Adept Blue (Stile's Phaze self) and tried to kill him. Turns out the Oracle set Red on his trail intentionally, to get Stile into Phaze to play his part to [[Save Both Worlds]].
* Done with a [[Prophecy Twist]] in [[Peter David]]'s ''[[Star Trek: New Frontier
* In ''Fire Logic'' an army attacks the peaceful Ashawala'i people because an oracle told them that someone from there would defeat them. Naturally, the lone survivor does just that ''because'' they killed off her people.
* Inverted in ''[[I
* Subverted and lampshaded in Calderon's ''Life is a Dream'', where Segismund - subject of an [[Oedipus the King
{{quote| ''My father, who is here to evade the fury<br />
Of my proud nature, made me a wild beast:<br />
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Sufficed to make me savage in my passions.<br />
What a strange method of restraining them!'' }}
* ''[[Harry Potter (
** What's more, Dumbledore hints that not all prophecies have to be fulfilled. The only reason Harry is going to fulfill the prophecy is because [[The Unchosen One|he would never rest until Voldemort was dead]], and the same goes for Voldemort. The only way to avoid it coming true is if they both stop, which certainly won't happen.
** Worth noting, the prophecy only actually says that one of the two (Voldemort, Harry) will kill the other. Since Harry was a baby at the time Voldemort heard it, striking immediately seemed to make sense. Voldy really should have put more thought into it, though.
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*** Also, I think you're missing the part about Lily's sacrifice being Harry's protection.
** Played for laughs with some of Trelawney's "predictions". The first time we see her, she asks Neville to use one of the blue cups for tea-leaves-reading after he breaks his first one. Neville, already nervous at the best of time, promptly breaks the first cup he uses. She ends the lesson by telling him he'll be late next time, "so mind you work extra hard to catch up". Hermione believes this is why people die when they see "the Grim".
* In ''[[
** Many, perhaps most, prophecies in WoT seem to work this way. For example, one well-known prophecy states that the Stone of Tear (a fortress in the middle of a major city) would never fall until Callandor (a super-powerful ancient sword held in the Stone) was wielded by the hand of the Dragon (the [[Chosen One]]). When the main character was told that he was the Dragon by what he considered untrustworthy sources and wanted to know for sure, he snuck into the Stone and yanked Callandor. Sure enough, he was the Dragon, but he probably never would even have heard of Callandor let alone decided to try to claim it if not for the prophecy.
*** Memorably, Moiraine (Rand's personal [[The Obi-Wan|Obi-Wan]]) was ''pissed'' that he had decided to go for Callandor so quickly, as he was most definitively ''not ready''. We can only imagine her reaction if she knew what had happened on his trip there.
* In ''[[Percy Jackson
* [[Classical Mythology|Greek Mythology]] ''adores'' this trope. A prophecy that Paris will cause Troy to burn down? His parents abandon him in a remote area, but he gets found and raised by someone else, eventually returns home by which time his parents have forgotten the prophecy, and due to things he did when abandoned, causes a long chain of events that ends with Troy burning. Many times this trope in Greek Mythology results in an [[Idiot Plot]]; for example, Cronus (father of many of the Greek gods, such as Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades), in an attempt to avert the prophecy that one of his children will overcome him, decides to swallow them as soon as they're born. His wife finally gets tired of it and smuggles the sixth (Zeus) off after he's born, tricking Cronus into swallowing a rock instead. After growing up, Zeus defeats Cronus and frees his siblings. Now, rather than eating the children when they're born, wouldn't it have been far more logical to just ''not have any children in the first place''?
** Given the lack of contraceptives, even divine ones, that would entail keeping it in his chiton -- which not too many of the Greek gods were any good at. Especially Zeus.
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** Specifically, {{spoiler|the machine sees in the future that there will be a plague. So, leaders use the machine to see who will get the plague, round them all up and keep them together to prevent it from spreading. Surprise! They all get the plague. The machine predicts a war with another country, so leaders launch a pre-emptive strike against the evil country and the result is a war. By seeing the future, the leaders create the future, which they then see. It's weird and circular, but makes sense: the machine doesn't so much see the future, it sees the future that ''the machine'' will create merely by existing.}}
** Again, the movie is an inversion of the original short story. In the original; protagonist has an envelope of items, which will help him to survive. The time scoop is being used for one political party to improve their candidate's chances in election. At all times, there is the appearance of free will; only at certain moments do the items reveal how they are useful, and always the protagonist must find this out for himself. Simply by existing, he causes the defeat of those employing the time scoop.
* In [[
* ''[[Dune]]'' uses this trope in an interesting way. Instead of the [[Seers]] giving a prophecy and leaving others to fulfill it, the seer '''is''' [[The Messiah]] who tries to find the best possible path for the future and enact it himself. The problem is that once humanity is set on a certain path in the present, the number of possible futures diminish and it becomes impossible to switch to a different path for the future without dealing with the effects of the prior path.
* All prophecies in the [[Sword of Truth]] series are self-fulfilling. In fact, that's the entire ''point'' of prophecies- they wouldn't be much good if they didn't actually change things.
** (This is also true in [[Real Life]]. It's just that real prophecies have a lower success rate.)
* [[
* The Clayr in ''[[Old Kingdom|The Abhorsen Trilogy]]'' apparently see nothing odd about inducting a member into their ranks because they Saw themselves inducting her into their ranks.
* ''The Nice And Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch'', from ''[[
{{quote| '''Newt''': But if you're going to places and doing things because she saw them, and she saw them because you were there, then...<br />
'''Anathema''': Yes, I know. }}
* Mr. Casaubon's posthumous attempt in ''[[Middlemarch]]'' to prevent his widow, Dorothea, from marrying Will Ladislaw using a codicil in his will that removes her inheritance if she does so. At the time of Casaubon's death they have no serious involvement and certainly no plans to marry, but Dorothea's sense of injustice helps to attract her to Will, and in fact her money is one of the things standing in the way of the relationship...
* In ''[[
* Among the many [[Foregone Conclusion|foregone conclusions]] in the [[Horus Heresy]] series are a number of these, including Horus's vision of the Emperor and the nine loyal primarchs being worshiped like gods.
* In ''[[Castle in
* In ''Through a Brazen Mirror: The Famous Flower of Servingmen'', the sorceress Margaret is haunted by a vision that her daughter and an unknown man will kill her; since the laws of magic prevent her from killing family without magical backlash, she tries to break the prediction by getting rid of the likeliest candidates for the man. {{spoiler|These candidates are her daughter's husband and son. She doesn't realize the son also counts as her family, and his death sets her up for failure for the rest of the book. She is eventually executed for the deaths of her grandson and son-in-law, as well as all the people she kills trying to indirectly kill her daughter afterward.}}
* In ''[[Inheritance Cycle
** Later in the series, it's stated that there ''is'' one way to prevent a self-fulfilling prophecy: killing yourself immediately after the prophecy is made. Any other attempt to avoid it will play the trope straight.
* Jane Yolen's [[Great Alta Saga]]. When Jenna's soldiers capture the Cat and tell her to kill him, as it is prophesized she will, she refuses. That night, the Cat breaks free and Jenna's close friend, called Cat as a nickname, dies in the resulting fight. Thus, Jenna [[Prophecy Twist|does]] bring about the death of a Cat.
* In [[Shannon Hale]]'s ''[[Princess Academy]]'', the priests of a country traditionally predict what city the prince's future wife will come from, and then the prince goes there to meet all the local girls and get married. The current prince is told that his bride will come from the remote village of Mount Eskel, so the kingdom hurriedly sets up the titular academy to give the local peasant girls a decent education before one of them becomes queen. The prince ends up proposing to {{spoiler|Britta,}} a girl he knew from back in the capital, whose parents had shipped her off to Mount Eskel to get her into the pool of potential brides. The priests are quick to close this loophole for future prophecies, and the main character later wonders why the prophecy didn't point to the city that {{spoiler|Britta}} was originally from, but decides that it was because Mount Eskel "needed an academy more than a princess".
* Cersei Lannister, from ''[[
* Played with in the Tim Pratt short story "Another End of the Empire": a [[Genre Savvy]] [[Evil Overlord]] receives a prophecy that a child from a certain village will grow up to bring an end to his empire. Rather than wipe them out (he knows how these things work; there will be survivors), he instead uses the village as a test bed for social and political reform, improving education and the general quality of life, hoping to eliminate any possible motive anyone would have for trying to overthrow him. He even adopts the three most likely candidates as his sons, and allows them to pursue their own agendas to keep them happy. The twist is that {{spoiler|in making all these changes, he has made his empire peaceful and prosperous, his subjects actually like him now rather than simply fear him, and he can even retire happily and pass on rule to one of his more progressive-minded sons.}} So his empire does come to end, just not the way he expected.
** The wording of the prophecy was "If allowed to grow to manhood, he will take over your empire, overthrow your ways and means, and send you from the halls of your palace forever", which ''almost'' (one can quibble about one part of it) happened, just not in the way the evil overlord thought: the Empire is taken over by one of the children... because he adopted the child (all of them, but only one wanted to rule) and later abdicated and gave the throne to that child, his ways and means were overthrown... because, in the process of allowing them to indulge in their agendas, that child had introduced extensive but effective reforms far beyond anything the overlord had considered, and while the one that took over the Empire didn't exactly ''send'' the overlord from the halls of the palace forever, he did see the overlord do so - because the overlord felt useless and didn't ''want'' to stay around after having abdicated.
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== Live Action TV ==
* [[
** Granted, the tabloid gave her the idea, and she never "fell in love" with Hogan (and, in fact, in the video he played a "Goldust"-style wrestler named "Starlight Starbright" instead of himself), but was this her having fun with a tabloid or an actual, but faulty, prediction of the future? Hmmm?
* ''[[
** Another ''[[
* Subverted in one episode of ''[[Xena: Warrior Princess]]'', in which a particular child is destined to take a king's throne, and the [[Evil Chancellor|obligatory evil councilor]] tries to use the prophecy to start a civil war which will put the baby on the throne and himself in place as regent. Eventually, the king marries the baby's mother, and so the prophecy is fulfilled: The baby is now heir to his father's throne.
** Don't forget Callisto, whose parents were killed during Xena's reign of terror, so she naturally assumed that Xena or one of her soldiers killed her folks. After she became a goddess, she accidentally ended up in her old village on the day of the attack. While trying to protect her mother and her younger self, she accidentally kills her father and is forced to kill her mother in self-defense, thus ensuring that she will grow up to be a cold-blooded bitch.
* Often used in conjunction with time Travel. For example, ''[[
** The same twist happens in the episode "Back There". A man travels back in time and tries to warn people of [[Abraham Lincoln|Lincoln's]] assassination. Unbeknownst to the man, one of the people he tells about it is John Wilkes Booth, who gets the idea from him.
** A non-time travel related ''Twilight Zone'' example: In "What's in the Box", a man is shown his future (via an enchanted TV set) in which he kills his wife during a fight and dies in the electric chair. When he tries to describe this to his wife, she laughs at him, which gets him angry, they start to fight, and...
** In "The Mirror," a successful South American revolutionary leader is told by the dictator he is replacing that his mirror is enchanted and he will see in it the face of the man who will assassinate him. The new ruler begins imagining that he sees the faces of his allies and one by one he has them executed, becoming as much of a blood-thirsty tyrant as the man he had fought against. Guilt-ridden, looks into the mirror a last time and realizes he is finally looking at his true murderer... and then kills himself.
* Lampshaded, defied, averted, played straight, and thoroughly deconstructed, all in one ''[[Star Trek:
{{quote| '''Picard''': If you are right, perhaps we could escape from the loop by avoiding the collision.<br />
'''La Forge''': That's our guess.<br />
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'''Picard''': No, we can't afford to start second guessing ourselves, we'll stay on this course until we have reason to change it. But let's do everything that we can to avoid the collision. }}
** This trope is also one of the driving themes of the episode ''Time Squared'', although it is averted at the very last moment.
* ''[[
** Occasionally, the vision would come true without her not doing anything except for watching. Usually, she ''completely'' misinterprets what's actually going on.
* ''[[ICarly
* ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' is full of these. Especially Isaac Mendez' comic book ''9th Wonders'', which depicts Hiro and Ando doing things like renting a car... and after Hiro finds the comic, he follows it to the letter, because he is shown doing it in the comic; but Isaac had only drawn it that way because he had seen Hiro in his visions of the future.
** Before that, he reads a comic in which he saves a little girl. He does, but only after putting her in danger in the first place.
** Even Sylar, after he steals Isaac's precognition power, does things like {{spoiler|killing Ted and impersonating Nathan to get the presidency}} solely because he had painted himself doing it.
** In "1961", a young {{spoiler|Angela speaks with the young Company Founders about her dream, in which they form a company, and of the horrible things we will do to protect the secret�, and of how it's a necessary evil�.}} She declares these things in a manner which suggests the idea of using the information from her prophetic dreams to help avoid, or prevent, exactly this type of thing from having to happen at all ''[[Idiot Plot|never occurred to her]]''.
* Done, though never identified as such, on ''[[
** The {{spoiler|false}} prophecy that Angel [[Offing the Offspring|would kill Connor]] that prompted {{spoiler|Wesley}} to kidnap then infant Connor from Angel in the first place is also an example. The kidnapping was the event that triggered the tragic chain of events that made up most of season 4, culminated in {{spoiler|Angel killing Connor to save a bunch of hostages}}. Thanks to a [[Deal
* Averted in one episode of ''[[
* On ''[[3rd Rock
{{quote| '''Dick''': I was completely convinced Mary was going to lose her job.<br />
'''Sally''': And did she?<br />
'''Dick''': Yeah. So I guess being paranoid is kind of like being psychic. }}
* In an episode of ''[[
* In ''[[
** Earlier in the episode, "Rimmer" (actually [[Prophetic Fallacy|a crewmember wearing Rimmer's nametag]]) dies of a heart attack brought on by the stress of being told (by Cassandra) that he's going to die of a heart attack.
** It's subverted when she predicts that Lister will murder Rimmer while the latter is making love to Kochanski. {{spoiler|Cassandra fabricated it to trick Rimmer and Kochanski into doing it, so she could get pre-emptive revenge on Lister}}.
* This sort-of shows up in the only ''[[
* Similarly on a ''[[
* ''[[[Law and Order Special Victims Unit]]'': Does it count if {{spoiler|the psychic predicts he'll catch the killer when he ''is'' the killer and just playing with the detectives?}}
** Probably not, as it's not a prophecy, it's just B.S. by a [[Jerkass]].
* ''[[
** {{spoiler|Sadly, this theory has been [[Jossed]], to the point where the timeline has split in two-one where Jack's plan worked, and one where it didn't.}}
** {{spoiler|This was un-Jossed in the series final when the nature of the alternate timeline was revealed. The [[Stable Time Loop]] was not confirmed though.}}
* Season 6 of ''[[Charmed]]'' reveals that Piper and Leo's son Wyatt is destined to become the most evil male witch ever. This leads Gideon, headmaster of the Magic Academy, to try and prevent it by killing Wyatt as an infant, not realizing that it will be all his attempts to kill him that will drive Wyatt to evil. Leo ultimately breaks the cycle by {{spoiler|killing Gideon}}.
* In ''[[
* Happens in ''[[Home and Away]]'' when Miles is told by a young and apparently psychic girl {{spoiler|who was either a hallucination or a ghost that only he could see}} that he will die if he falls asleep. He spends several days not sleeping, eventually collapsing from exhaustion on his desk. If he hadn't been woken up a few minutes later and walked away from his desk, he would have been decapitated by a falling ceiling fan.
* What drives a lot of the plot in ''[[Flash Forward 2009]]''. For example, until Janis saw a vision of herself pregnant in the future, she had never really considered having a baby. Mark was haunted by the vision that he would fall off the wagon, the pressure building to the point that when he's given a flask by someone who'd foreseen himself quitting drinking, he gives in to fate instead of pouring it out. Olivia's vision of herself with a lover begins to break apart her marriage, making cheating more likely.
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** By the end of the series, it's been shown that the future seen in flash-forwards can be changed, but doing so required great effort to fight the inertia of the timestream.
* There's a sort-of case in ''[[Doctor Who]]'' season five, when The Alliance, consisting of pretty much every villain the Doctor ever faced, band together to lock the Doctor way in order to prevent him destroying the universe (it's [[It Makes Sense in Context|complicated]]). Unfortunately locking him away meant he couldn't do anything to ''prevent'' the universe's destruction in the first place. Oops. {{spoiler|That said, because he is in a perfect prison that isn't affected by the Universe ending, it gave the Doctor an opportunity to restart the universe with a Big Bang 2.0 by using the very prison he was put into.}}
* On ''[[
** Later, the one who gave Mitchell the prophecy in the first place, admits that she completely made it up to screw with his head, and specifically calls this out. Quoth, "there is a wolf-shaped bullet. That he carved his name on."
** {{spoiler|The prophecy does fulfill it self in the end, Mitchell's paranoia leads him to aid the monstrous Herrick in attempt to learn how to survive death-by-wolf, the consequences of such are so terrible that he decided he needs to end his life, and had his werewolf best friend George stake him.}} But not only that {{spoiler|The prophecy almost unfolds exactly as the would-be prophet intended; on hearing Herrick has put George's girlfriend Nina in hospital, George almost kills Mitchell there and then.}}
* In ''[[
== Plays ==
* Shakespeare's ''[[
* Shakespeare's ''[[
== Tabletop Games ==
* In ''[[Warhammer 40000
** Which is also deliciously (especially from the Chaos Gods' perspective) ironic, because the Emperor had been an opponent of religious dogma.
** Of course, this depends on the edition and writer: In some works, any guardsman knows of Horus and his betrayal, as it's why Chaos Space Marines exist.
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== Video Games ==
* Done twice in ''[[
** Done a second time with Knight-Commander Meredith. In Act III of the story, the mages believe that Meredith is slowly going crazy trying to uproot [[Blood Magic]] from her ranks, even when it's clear that most of the mages just want to be left alone. When Meredith begins killing ''every'' mage, regardless of the reason, the mages turn to [[Blood Magic]] just to survive Meredith and the templars, making Meredith's paranoia end up causing exactly what she was so paranoid about.
* This is basically the quarian-geth conflict in the backstory of ''[[
** This "Morning War" became a cautionary tale to the other races, who took the exact wrong message from it and made this [[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy]] law throughout the galaxy.
** One of the [[Base Breaker|many, many complaints]] about [[Gainax Ending|The Ending]] of ''[[
** The [[Hatedom|Fandom]] has adapted a version of the [[Memetic Mutation|"Yo Dawg" Meme]] to express the ridiculousness of this motivation: "Yo Dawg, I heard {{spoiler|you don't want to be killed by synthetics}}, so I made a race of synthetics to kill you every 50,000 years so you don't {{spoiler|get killed by synthetics.}}"
* In ''[[Summoner]]'', Emperor Murod hears a prophecy that a Summoner will put an end to his reign. Every [[Doomed Hometown|action]] he thus [[The Call Knows Where You Live|takes]] to stop this prophecy from happening results in making the prophesy happen, by undoing Joseph's [[Refusal of the Call]]. Had he sat on his throne doing nothing, Joseph would've lived his life as a farmer on another continent, never even learning of Murod's existence.
* Overlord Zetta from ''[[Makai Kingdom]]'' receives a prophecy from an oracle that his Netherworld will be destroyed. In an attempt to [[Screw Destiny]], Zetta hunts down and consults the '[[Cosmic Keystone|sacred tome]]' - a book in which "everything pertaining to his Netherworld" is recorded - only to find that it states that his own stupidity has doomed the Netherworld. Insulted, Zetta responds by burning the book to a crisp, consequently [[Earthshattering Kaboom|un-recording]] the whole Netherworld in the process and fulfilling the prophecy.
* This is the plot of ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
** Specifically, Link himself was sealed away because, as a Hylian child, he was considered too young to be the Hero of Time. Of course, the Hero would have been unnecessary if he hadn't been sealed away for seven years, letting Ganondorf take over. If Link had in fact been a Kokiri, or else a little bit older, he would have succeeded in stopping Ganondorf because he would have gotten the power first (and its debatable if he would have gotten all of the Triforce).
** The events of ''Ocarina of Time'' are inverted in ''Wind Waker'', where Ganondorf's attempt to work in the shadows to restore and reclaim Hyrule under his title ultimately manage to do everything required to draw he, Zelda, and Link together once more. He perceives this as so self-evident that he expounds at length during the final battle about how the circumstances of their meeting cannot be anything ''but'' fate.
* Similar to the ''Willow'' example, Kamek targets the newly born [[Super Mario Bros
* A Canthan New Year quest in ''[[
** The main storylines of prophecies and factions involve this to some extent. In prophecies {{spoiler|The Mursaat's attempts to prevent the release of the titans by the chosen lead to the player characters fighting against the mursaat and releasing the titans.}} In factions {{spoiler|Shiro's attempt to prevent the emperor killing him leads to his death. The story also suggests that the emperor might have been reacting to some related predictions, although doesn't directly say}}. The factions case was later [[Retcon|retconned]] into being {{spoiler|an deliberate move by the [[Big Bad]], and not an actual prophecy as such.}}
* In ''[[God of War (
** Kratos himself breaks the cycle after getting his revenge. {{spoiler|By killing himself at the end of the game. Or did he?}}
** This also happens in ''God of War: Ghost of Sparta''. A prophet said that whoever controlled the "marked warrior" controlled the fate of Olympus. Kratos's brother, Deimos, already had a mark on him. But when Deimos was taken away, Kratos tattooed an identical mark on himself out of respect for his lost brother.
* ''[[
* Two concurrent prophecies in ''[[
** It is known that, in the future, a Sorceress will rise to conquer the world and attempt [[Time Crash|Time Compression]] to attain godhood. Therefore, future societies persecute potential Sorceresses. When Ultimecia is finally born, this persecution plants the seeds of unending hatred within her, causing her to lash out and devastate the world.
** Ultimecia is aware that she is destined to be defeated by the Legendary SeeD. Therefore, she attempts [[Time Crash|Time Compression]] so she can [[A God Am I|absorb all reality and all time]] and escape death. Her meddling with the timestream to accomplish this goal inspired people in the past to create SeeD, the ''very organization'' that raises anti-Sorceress child soldiers - and also caused Edea and Cid to intentionally groom Squall to become the SeeD destined to defeat Ultimecia.
* In the ''[[Prince of Persia
* In ''[[Planescape: Torment]]'', one of the side quests is about a necromancer looking for the blood of an immortal being. He asked a prophet to tell him where he could find it, and was told that he would find it if he searched these specific crypts. And he found it... in the form of the main character (an immortal) who arrived to stop him from desecrating the crypts.
* ''[[
* In ''[[
== Web Comics ==
* In ''[[
** {{spoiler|The kobold Oracle, on the other hand has prophesized that Durkon WILL return home... albeit posthumously. Meaning that the "bad things" may for instance be due to him not being able to defend the place or simply that his own death and the subsequent mourning may be those "bad things".}}
** The dwarven clerics [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshade]] this:
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** Another Oracle-related one (well, what do you expect, with future-prediction?): the Test of the Heart, which one must undergo to reach the Oracle (a simple health check) was instituted after someone came in for a prediction, which was that they would have a heart attack right after being told they were going to have a heart attack.
* [http://yafgc.net/?id=1341 These] [http://yafgc.net/?id=1342 two] strips from ''Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic''.
* Jade of ''[[
* Pops up in ''[[
* [http://nedroid.com/2006/10/1443-timetube/ Nedroid does it]
* In ''[[
== Web Original ==
* Used in ''[[
* Done 'spectacularly' in Opifex's ''The Storm Dragon'' series, a [[Fan Fiction]] series based on the ''[[Inheritance Cycle]]'' world. Most Elves and Dragons know a legend about a black dragon born during a storm that will cause a great deal of evil for the world. Both races attempt to kill the black dragon Ravana, but not only does he prove himself extremely hard to kill, but their attempts to do so drive him over the edge of insanity when he realizes every living thing is his enemy, turning him into exactly the kind of vengeful and murderous creature that the prophecy spoke about.
* On TV Tropes, anything added to the [[Flame Bait]] page will... well, become flame bait, because then people will argue about whether it belongs there, scold other people for adding it to tropes, and so on.
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== Western Animation ==
* Arguably inverted in ''[[Teen Titans (
** Her friends even call her out on this, but she shrugs them off each time. During a telepathic conversation with Trigon, she even suggests that she could stop him by refusing to cooperate with the prophecy, but willingly goes along with it when he tells her that, as her creator, he decides her destiny.
** Her willingness to go along with the prophecy could probably be justified by the fact that Slade would have killed the other Titans had she not cooperated.
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**** It wouldn't have made a difference.
**** She imbued some of her power unto the Titans; thus, whilst the rest of the world perished, they survived. Considering she had always believed the coming of her father and the end of the world as inevitable, even entertaining the idea of preserving her [[True Companions]] was really the most she could ask for. By doing so - along with holding onto the "lucky" penny given to her by Beast Boy - she also evinced that she maintained some minute level of hope throughout the ordeal.
* The episode "[[Avatar: The Last Airbender
** Another example from the same episode: Wu predicts that [[Suspiciously Specific Denial|the village will not be destroyed by the nearby volcano]]. While the villagers' minds are put at ease, the more skeptical protagonists go to check the volcano and find that it is about to erupt. They warn the villagers, who refuse to believe them, and are forced to divert the lava flow themselves. This does nothing to dissuade the village's faith in Wu; after all, she predicted the village wouldn't be destroyed, and it wasn't.
*** Much to Sokka's frustration.
*** On the other hand, there's some indication that Aunt Wu is just a canny old bird who's very [[Genre Savvy]] about this trope. After all, had she not made the prediction about the town not being destroyed, the people would have been willing to pick up and move, becoming refugees because they'd lost their homes and possessions and land. Instead, since the people refused to leave, the Avatar that she made the prediction around had to go and save the village instead. [[Alternate Character Interpretation|Aunt Wu's just manipulating everybody for the good of the village.]]
* ''[[
* ''[[Justice League (
* The ''[[
* A few examples in ''[[
** Demona goes back in time from 1995 to 994 to warn her past self about the slaughter of her clan by the humans. This causes her past self to distrust the humans living in the castle, so she betrays them to the vikings... who slaughter her clan after taking over the castle.
** Prince (later King) Duncan was paranoid that his cousin Macbeth would try to claim the throne of Scotland, and this paranoia was exacerbated when the Weird Sisters prophesied that Macbeth would become king. So he attacked Macbeth, unsuccessfully, and Macbeth killed him and became king anyway. The catch is that Macbeth had no interest in becoming king and was loyal to Duncan, and he never would have killed Duncan if Duncan hadn't attacked him first.
*** When the Weird Sisters told Macbeth that Duncan hired the Hunter to [[You Killed My Father|kill his father]] (the former king) does Macbeth fight back.
* ''[[Young Justice (
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** For this reason making prophecies about the imperial succession was usually a crime punishable by death.
** Not a prophesy as such but a major part of the death of Caligula was betrayal by the commander of his guard. By most accounts the man was loyal until he found out the Emperor was having doubts about him and remembered what happened to the last guard commander Caligula didn't trust.
* When the first ''[[Twilight (
* One aspect of supply and demand involves the idea that when people believe that the price of a good will increase, they'll buy more of it before the expected increase, and as such will be the cause of the price increase thanks to the demand going up.
** Inversely, if there's a report, true or false, that supplies are low, people will buy more of it, and the result is that supply WILL be low. Some companies try to profit from this, by claiming that "supplies are limited" when they are, in fact, anything of the sort, creating a sort of artificial demand.
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** The situation is made harder by the fact averting stereotypes is usually a conscious decision to make a character that is 'different' (implying they are abnormal) and backlash against stereotypes often goes wrong, creating 'reverse' stereotypes (for example, [[Real Women Never Wear Dresses]]).
** Most suicides. People are told repeatedly that they are scum and that they don't deserve to be alive. Out of peer pressure, take a guess at what happens.
* The November 1948 issue of ''[[Astounding Science Fiction]]'' printed a reader's letter reviewing the contents of the November ''1949'' issue. Editor [[John W. Campbell]] then commissioned stories from the authors mentioned in the letter, making the actual November 1949 issue as close to the imaginary review as possible.
* People who claim to be psychics run off this. They hope that if they tell you something will happen under certain circumstances, you'll enforce those circumstances on your own. If they tell you "You will meet your future spouse while wearing red shoes," they hope that you'll wear red shoes all the time (especially since if you're asking a psychic, you're likely a little desperate), so when you inevitably meet someone, the "prediction" comes true. Similarly, if you ask about, say, having a baby, that implies you're stressed about it (stress can make it harder to conceive). They hope that if they tell you you're going to have a baby soon, that'll reduce your stress levels, possibly encourage you to "try" more, and increase the odds that you will have a baby.
* Andrew Schlafly of [[
* [[
** Before her, [[
* Members on the forum 4chan kept vehemently asserting that Milhouse was not a meme. This in turn led to "Milhouse is not a meme" becoming a meme, so Milhouse now is a meme.
* On the February 1936 elections in the Spanish Second Republic, the winning coalition was formed by several left-leaning parties, among them the Spanish Communist Party, whose influence was very little when compared to Republican Left or the Socialist Party. However, the right-wing parties, the conservatives in the army and the church said that the left coalition would turn Spain into a USSR-like dictatorship and prepared a coup. The coup partially failed, resulting in the [[Spanish Civil War]]. And, since the only foreign nation willing to support the Republic with war material was the USSR, the Communist Party soon started to gain great power, until it became the leading party of the coalition. If the Republic had ended up winning the war, the ending result may have been exactly Spain turning into a dictatorship.
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